"I'm literally tired — emotionally, physically, mentally and financially," said Marguerite Vecchio of Price's Landing in Minisink Hills, her voice cracking as she addressed the members of the Delaware River Basin Commission. "You hear us, you listen to us, but you don't help us."

Vecchio, whose home was destroyed after each of the three floods over the past two years, was one of 38 people who spoke at Tuesday's sessions at Lake Wallenpaupack's Environmental Learning Center. The two sessions were called by the commission to get public comment on its proposed Flexible Flow Management Plan.

The comments ranged from the impassioned to the analytical. Virtually all opposed the plan.

"This plan is the best that this commission can come up with?" asked Diane Tharp of Minisink Hills. "This is an insult to the integrity of our governors and a violation to the constitutional rights of the people living in this Delaware River Basin."

Rep. John Siptroth, D-189, was there, but he did not speak formally. He said he had sent a letter to the state's Department of Environmental Protection and the commission denouncing the plan.

The plan is intended to balance the competing and sometimes contradictory interests at play in managing the Delaware River: supplying drinking water, protecting fish and other wildlife habitats, enhancing recreation and mitigating floods.

It aims to manage discharges from the basin's reservoirs, set flow targets on the river and temperatures in its tailwaters to sustain fisheries and protect ecology, and prevent water levels getting so low that salt backs into the river from the ocean.

But it was flood mitigation that was largely responsible for drawing more than 200 people, who packed the hall of the center. Many wore blue life preservers to symbolize the danger to which they feel they are being exposed.

"Three devastating floods have killed nine people, displaced thousands and cost hundreds of millions of dollars in damages," said Tharp, whose home was devastated three times. "Tonight is a time to end the talking and begin to act."

A public school teacher at Barrett Elementary, she has turned reservoir management into a mission, testifying at several public forums. The crowd applauded before she even began speaking.

To many residents along the river, the upstate New York reservoirs — the Cannonsville, Neversink and Pepacton — that supply drinking water to New York City exacerbate flooding when their water levels are kept too high. The three reservoirs were near or above 100 percent capacity when heavy rains and floods soaked the Delaware River Basin in September 2004, April 2005 and June 2006. Residents along the river want these levels to be lower.

The Delaware River Basin Commission, comprised of representatives of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and the federal government, is studying the precise effect that these water levels have had on flooding.

In September, in an apparent bow to pressure, it adopted an interim plan to maintain voids in the reservoirs when they reach 80 percent capacity. But the reservoir system routinely held higher levels of water throughout the time the plan was in effect. It ends May 31, when the proposed Flexible Flow Management Plan would be enacted.

While the proposed plan does have provisions to discharge water from the reservoirs when they reach 75 percent capacity, the rules for keeping voids would only be in effect from August through December. In other words, there would be no voids in place during months that have produced two of the three recent floods.

To some residents, this means the plan backtracks on even the modest gains seen in the interim plan now in place.

Commission officials counter that flooding concerns need to be balanced with the river's other needs. "It comes down to this," said Clarke Rupert, the commission's spokesperson. "It's a finite resource with competing needs." And many of those needs had evolved over time, he noted. Fisheries management and flooding had emerged relatively recently as priorities.

Some 15 million people rely on the river; most of New York City and the entire city of Philadelphia use it for drinking water.

"The plan is to make sure we don't think of one thing at a time," said Cathy Curran Myers, Pennsylvania's representative on the commission, and a deputy secretary at the Department of Environmental Protection. "At least this would give us a framework rather than a single issue driving it."

Recreation also looms large. The Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area draws 5 million visitors each year. "As of today," said Patrick Lynch, the park's chief biologist, "we cannot endorse any plans or products." He cited the plan's unknown impact on conservation as the cause of the park's opposition.

To some in the audience, the commission had failed to balance all these concerns. "It may be that the reservoirs have been sub-optimally managed all these years," said Jack Stauffer of Monmouth County, N.J.

Striking the balance between drought protection and flood mitigation can be tough, officials acknowledge. They point to April 2005 and the days following the second of the recent spate of floods. "We were days away from going into drought," said Paul Rush, deputy commissioner of New York City's Department of Environmental Protection. "It really turned on a dime. It really shows how quickly things can change."

Some worried that the plan proposed would be put into effect, despite the complaints. But Myers said she fully expected it to be revised.

That sentiment was echoed by New York City's Department of Environmental Protection, which has drawn fire for its perceived arrogance and callousness to residents down river from its reservoirs. "The program on the Web site, I guarantee you, is not going to be the one adopted," Rush said.

Others in the audience cited their preference for another plan, referred to only as CP2, which was devised by a group called the Conservation Coalition. It is comprised of trout fishing groups and conservationists.

CP2 would maintain lower voids while also protecting fisheries. "It would help the flooding and fish," said Agust Gudmundsson of Hackettstown, N.J. "Everybody wins."

Comments on the Flexible Flow Management Plan can be submitted for about another week. Written comments must be received by April 6, and include the name, address and affiliation of the commenter. Submit via e-mail to paula.schmitt@drbc.state.nj.us, snail mail to Commission Secretary, DRBC, P.O. Box 7360, West Trenton, NJ 08628-0360, or fax 609 883-9522, attn. Commission Secretary.